A Night Out and IN Without the Bean

It started with a simple question, “Hey mom, do you think you could babysit Friday night so Jeff and I can go out to dinner?” I hadn’t even asked Jeff if we wanted a date night (we’d just had one last Thursday thanks to his mom, Nana). Her response? “Love to! Or, you can drop Ella off here for the night and pick her up Saturday morning sometime.” WHAT?

So I sent Jeff a message – “Hey hon – want to go out to dinner tonight? Mom said she and dad would keep Ella overnight for us.” His reply – “Sounds great!” (Should’ve known then that he didn’t read all the words.)

I was picking mom up to go out to the petting zoo at Short Pump (yes- again. the kid likes animals) so on the way to get her I called Jeff to ask if he was sure…”Hon – just calling to be sure you’re ready for Ella to spend the night away from us?” To which he replied, “SPEND THE NIGHT?” He obviously didn’t read all the words in my earlier message. After just a few moments of discussion we decided to go for it.

So, last night after feeding Ella dinner and getting her packed up we headed to her GrannyMac & Pop’s house to leave her for a sleepover. It was sad to leave her – there were tears…just not hers. And off we went for a night alone…A…L…O…N…E…with no little one to wrangle, or rock, or put to bed, or to hear on the monitor, or to wake up to.

First we went out to dinner to a fabulous place at the intersection of Robious and Huguenot Roads – Ghengis Khan Mongolian Grill. For those of us who LOVED the Greywolf Grill, here is your place. There are some differences:
(1) the guys at the grill aren’t funny…they don’t even speak. the guys at greywolf talked to each other and really cracked me up when we were there.(2) they didn’t automatically bring us more rice(3) they don’t give you the little tortillas to wrap your goodies in to eatBut they were good! And the bread they give you with your soup (Chinese soup choices) is AWESOME…I got more.They aren’t the Greywolf, but they’ll at least partially filled the hole left in my tummy since it closed.And there are fortune cookies at the end. Mine said, “When you get something for nothing, you just haven’t been billed for it yet.” Made me laugh. Jeff’s said something about touching others which we made plenty of dirty jokes about.

Next, we went to Starbucks and got coffee and headed into Lowes. Now, for those of you with toddlers/young kids – go to Lowes without them whenever you can!!! We looked in all the kitchen cabinets for ideas of what we want to do in our kitchen remodel…we looked at paint samples…we looked at rugs…we looked for new plants we wanted. No one cried, no one needed to be rolled around to avoid boredom and crying. It was nice and relaxing. I texted mom when we got there (8:30 p.m.) to be sure all had gone well getting the bean to bed. Mom texted back, “We’re having a blast – what time is bed?” Uh…30 minutes ago!!! Ha ha! They got her down around 9:00 and she slept until between 7:30-8:00 this morning.

Then, we came home – alone – without or to our kid. Crazy, I know! A night at our own home without our little bean…what would we do now? Basically the same thing we would do any Friday night including watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (I have a huge celeb-crush on that man) and going to bed. That’s all the details you get there – I know you’re thankful.

This morning, I woke up with a splitting headache (thanks, pollen) at 7 a.m. So much for sleeping in. I went in the kitchen, made some coffee, took a claritin and some bc, and stumbled into the living room. While I was stumbling about, Jeff went out to get the paper. And we SAT AND READ – both of us! I read the entire first section interrupted!We showered and then headed back to Lowes. We needed to look at the paint cards in the morning light next to the brick on our house before getting samples of the two shades we want to paint outside and choose between. Yep – we’re going to paint the outside of the house…and not green. I’m not saying any more right now…just know that it is going to look different and I AM EXCITED! We also bought some wood (well, something like it) for Jeff to make a jig from (jig here meaning straightedge) and a new little rug for the living room.We took all our purchases home and got the new rug down (cleaning as we went) before heading to my parents to pick up the little one.

We wondered if she’d missed us…would she cry when she saw us? Nope – she just wanted to show us my parents’ cat, Cricket…who we’ve met many times. Oh well. We hung out a bit and then brought her home for lunch and naptime. She nearly fell asleep in the car on the way home – my parents must have worn her out!

It was a first – Ella away from both of us at one time overnight. Or should I say, “It was a first – our first night away from Ella together.” We missed our Bean, but it was nice to just be together.